A trio of American indie booksellers will be among the thousands of publishing professionals converging on Bologna for the 2019 Children’s Book Fair, each with an eye on how to bring an international dimension to their work back home. Melissa Posten of the Novel Neighbor in St. Louis, Clarissa Hadge of Trident Booksellers & Café in Boston, and Sarah Hedrick of Iconoclast Books & Gifts in Hailey, Idaho, are attending the fair on scholarship from Bookselling Without Borders, an industry group that aims to increase booksellers’ awareness of international bookselling trends. I caught up with Posten and Hadge to talk about their expectations.

“I feel humbled and grateful that I was chosen to go, so I’m hoping to bring back all of the knowledge that I get over there and share it,” Hadge says.

Posten and Hadge are first-time attendees to Bologna but have extensive children’s bookselling experience, and they say that the fair is an opportunity to see how publishers decide which foreign-language books have a future place on American bookshelves, which don’t, and why.

For Hadge, the timing couldn’t be better. A fire and flood shuttered Trident in 2018, but the store has reopened with more than double the previous space available for its children’s section. With that added space, she intends to add more programming, including educator nights, school programs, and publisher showcases. The trip to Bologna will help guide her next steps. “I’m really striving to provide children’s books that will be a reflection of the market and our readership in the store but will also show kids and adults a wider scope of the world out there,” Hadge says.

The same goes for Posten, who says she is selling books in a community where more than 70 languages are spoken in the schools. She notes that she has wanted to attend the book fair because “St. Louis has traditionally been very welcoming to immigrants,” and she hopes to bring back helpful insights for local librarians with whom she works for readings and school events.

Both booksellers have already had some success selling books published by a handful of American publishers who bring international titles to their lists. They intend to use what they’ve seen working for those publishers as a starting place to find more publishers with whom to work, and more titles to coax into the American market. For instance, Hadge prominently features books from Barefoot Books and has seen “an uptick in bilingual board books.” Posten seeks out books from Enchanted Lion and Groundwood and has found success with readers of illustrated titles from around the world.

Still, Posten believes there are opportunities for publishers to bring more well-crafted translations to American readers in a number of areas. “I definitely feel like a big area of opportunity is in middle grade,” she says. “Publishers are doing a much better job getting translated picture books into the hands of people.”

Posten also hopes the book fair will give her insights into the decisions publishers use regarding layout and book design for titles.

Along with the opportunity to meet publishers, the booksellers are eager to see how indie booksellers from other countries do their work. “I don’t know anything about what goes on in indie bookstores overseas,” says Posten, who has more than 17 years of experience as a bookseller, beginning at Children’s Book World in Haverford, Penn.

The Bologna Book Fair is just one of six sites for bookseller residencies and scholarships through Bookselling Without Borders this year. The organization was founded by Europa Editions in 2016 and has grown to include 13 publishing partners and a host of other industry affiliates dedicated to providing American booksellers with an opportunity to see international publishing firsthand.

“The hope is that booksellers will change the way they think about selling international literature,” Europa editor-in-chief Michael Reynolds told PW earlier this year, adding, “I find it extraordinary how many end-of-year lists about diverse books come out without a single title of translation.”

All told, this year 14 booksellers will participate in fairs and residencies in six locations, with guided tours, meetings with fellow booksellers and publishers, and educational workshops organized by Bookselling Without Borders.